


Rubicon

by neveroffanon



Series: addicts and broken things [6]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Episode AU: s2e13 King, mentions of beth's mental health, ruby is the sweetest and most awesome friend ever, this occaisionally gets her in trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveroffanon/pseuds/neveroffanon
Summary: Before Rio makes his reappearance Ruby worries about Beth’s mental state.  Occurs throughout the year that Rio is pretending to be dead and the girls are trying to get their criminal empire off the ground.
Relationships: Beth Boland & Ruby Hill, Beth Boland & Stan Hill, Ruby Hill/Stan Hill
Series: addicts and broken things [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1360924
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36
Collections: Good Girls Prompt-a-thon 2020





	1. Chapter 1

It was a shit show these days. 

An absolute shit show. She’d told Stan as much, after Christmas and New Years were past, but he’d brushed her off talking about Beth's divorce and her kids and being investigated and being arrested taking its toll. He would know, he’d said. Ruby had brought herself to nod, but he didn’t know Beth. He was on the outside looking in, and couldn’t see that the girl was in one of those fake upswings. Where she plastered on the smile and the laugh and pretended that if she just _worked_ at it, she’d beat it. Ruby had tried to tell her once that living with depression took grit, yes, but therapy could help too. Or meds. Or both. Beth had shrugged her off, and Ruby had never brought it up again. 

It had been hard enough back then for her own self, trying to take care of Harry and with Sara’s kidneys starting to fail. Beth had always been able to take care of herself. She didn’t need someone nagging at her when she was already doing the best she could. 

Now, Beth didn’t have four babies looking to her to feed them, depending on her to be there every moment of every day. And she was losing it. Picking up craft projects and dropping them, digging herself deeper into the _life_ instead of pulling herself out, going on baking sprees, and then spending hours buzzed on the loveseat instead of taking care of business. She was in a tailspin, and the worst of it was that it didn’t make a bit of sense. 

She should’ve been getting better. The dealership was making money again, gangfriend wasn’t up in her business any more, Turner had totally vanished, Annie was stable, even the kids were doing better. And somehow Beth wasn’t. 

Ruby sighed. She’d been lying in bed for an hour, and her eyes were gritty and dry from staring up at the ceiling. Getting up and doing something was better than getting all twisted up and not sleeping. She threw a glance at the clock, and groaned. It was three in the morning. Even if she managed not to wake up the kids, it was just too early. She tossed herself upright anyway. Shit shows didn’t stop being shit shows just because it was three hours even before the birds would even think about making noise. Stan would be back soon, too. He’d probably like a look at her face when she was awake, for once. All those night shifts were killing their time together in the evenings. 

A quick slide into her slippers, and she was pulling the door open into the hallway and shimmying down the hall toward the kitchen. She took the last big step over the creaky boards right in front of the kitchen and leaned gingerly against the counter for a moment. She canted an ear toward the kids’ rooms, but no sounds of sneaky feet hitting the floor came her way. Pushing herself upright, she set about opening the cabinets where the K cups were stashed. She rifled through them, picked out a hot chocolate and pulled out the machine. 

The lock clicked in the door just as she slid the cup in and started it. “Stan!” Ruby whispered his name. He came around the edge of the door, eyes squinting against the light. He dredged up a smile, and it trailed across his face slowly. Ruby felt his exhaustion like it was her that had just worked a fourteen-hour shift. She stretched her hands toward him, and he walked straight into the hug. He squeezed until she had to laugh and push him away. 

She peered up at him, smoothed his shoulders with a hand. “You okay babe?” 

He nodded, “Just a long day. But what are you doing up so early? You know you gotta be up for Sara in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Ruby frowned, listened to the bubbling of the Keurig machine as it finished heating, and turned away to grab him a mug. Tucking it under the dispenser, she kept her eyes on the mug as she spoke. “I was thinking about Beth and stuff.” 

Beside her, Stan shuffled into a seat at the island, jacket crinkling like plastic bags being rubbed together. “God, could your jacket be any louder? That’s gonna wake the kids right up.” Ruby tugged at a sleeve until Stan laughed and helped her pull the jacket free of his arm. 

“Private security doesn’t need designer silk jackets. We got that polyester junk. Washable, you know,” He shrugged out of the jacket and plopped onto a stool. Ruby squeezed a hand onto his shoulder and settled the jacket behind him. 

She rubbed a hand over the material and squeezed at his neck before moving around to hover over the Keurig. It was making that horrible squelching noise that never failed to make her ears ring. She shook the noise away and sighed. 

“So what is it?” Stan asked, behind her. Ruby settled her hands onto the counter, mind flashing through all the things she could say. _I think Beth needs an intervention_ was too vague. _My best friend is separated from her husband, struggling hard to make ends meet, and I think may have shot and killed a smoking hot gangbanger._ _She might have also been in love with him._ That would get her the crazy eyebrow. Ruby sighed. 

“I don’t know Stan. I really don’t. Beth’s just been so... so frazzled lately. It’s like she’s got a hangover that’s lasting way too long or something.” Ruby plucked the cup of hot chocolate out from the machine and grasped it to bring to the island. She slid it across the countertop and looked up into Stan’s face. 

He tilted his head, wrapping a finger around the handle of the cup. “Girl you know you just said frazzled, right?” He chuckled, lifting the cup. 

“Stan. I’m so serious right now. Beth is not doing well.” 

“Well, what do you want me to say Ruby? No, she’s not doing well. You three decided you were gonna start working for a gang. A gang. Do you know how crazy that is?” Stan set the mug down on the counter, frowning at her. He sighed, and Ruby mirrored him. 

“We had reasons,” she replied. There were so many reasons. Sara, she wanted to remind him. 

Like he’d heard her, Stan found a small smile to give her. “And most all of them came from the right place. Don’t think I don’t know that. But, you gotta admit, that ish was crazy. It’s no wonder Beth isn’t coping. Not with all that other mess she’s dealing with,” he frowned. Took another sip and then opened his mouth to go on. “How are _you_ doing?” 

Ruby rocked back into the counter. She’d been wound up for hours. For what felt like years, she could admit to herself, even if she didn’t actually want to say it aloud. Instead of speaking, she shrugged. 

“Come on now, don’t give me that. You aren’t up making your husband some K cup hot chocolate at o-dark-thirty because you’re feeling right as rain. So spill it,” he raised the eyebrow at her over the rim of the mug. 

She sighed. “I think she and I should go away.” 

“Uhh. Go away to the Big House? Or…” Stan set down the mug, a frown deepening the lines around his mouth and eyes. 

“Stan, really?” Ruby shook her head. “No, I don’t think we need to go away to jail. I meant like a trip or something. To get her to actually talk about what happened. Because she isn’t…she’s not _right_. And I’m worried.” 

“Beth is one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. And I know you. And my mother,” Stan stood from the island and reached for her hands. He brought them to his lips and pressed a kiss into her knuckles. “You and she, I know you’re like two peas in a pod. I get that, but you can’t make her talk if she doesn’t want to. She’s grown, baby. You can’t force her.” 

“If I don’t and something happens—.” 

“Ruby. Nothing is going to happen. Say it with me,” he waited, until Ruby groaned and mumbled the words back at him. 

“I can’t hear you,” Stan sang to her and danced away to grab his hot chocolate. “Say it louder! Wake the kids up! Bring the house down!” 

“Stan, hush!” 

“Not until you say it!” he sang, louder, starting to moonwalk across the kitchen floor. Ruby laughed, despite herself, and tried to stifle the sound behind her hand. Stan slid in front of her, twirled and dropped his mug into the sink, and leaned up to lay his forehead against hers. 

“She’s going to be alright,” he murmured. Ruby shook her head. Stan leaned in closer, pressed his face into her hair, arms enveloping her. “And yes, I already know you’re going to make sure. Just you gotta take of you too, alright?” 

That struck her, in a way that began to unravel some of the nervous energy she’d been carrying since Beth had called her over and told her that she was going to turn herself in. The girl had been stressed, but she wasn’t stupid. And if she and Stan were both calling her out for not paying enough attention to her own needs, then maybe something was a little wrong. A part of her, though, rebelled. She and Beth were a unit, with Annie. They took care of each other. 

“I have to make sure Stan,” Ruby said, finally. “She’d do it for me. We did this whole crazy thing together, and now it’s over and we have to learn to live with what we did.” She burrowed her face into Stan’s shoulder, as he nodded into her hair. 

“You do what you have to do.” 


	2. Chapter 2

“So you and this... dude Rio.” 

“Yep.” 

“And you tried to hire a guy, from a pawnshop?” 

“No, well, I mean I did. But that was a different guy. The guy from the pawnshop was trying to help but there was this other guy... look things just got out of hand. We had a plan, you know? And you know what they say about best laid plans?” 

Beth smiles at him, for all of a moment, before it crumbles. There was a hole in Ruby’s leg, but she was going to be fine. That was what mattered. He’d been repeating it himself for the last three hours. The closer he got to being able to see Ruby again, the less it was working. 

And if he heard one more word about the broke ass plans that Ruby and her girls had called themselves making, he was going to scream. 

“I never wanted her to be hurt,” Beth says, after they’ve been silent for a long moment. 

“I don’t think that matters right now. What you wanted.” 

Beth doesn’t reply, and Stan folds in on himself, butt burning from too much time spent in the hard plastic chair, but he doesn’t want to get up. He won’t get up until the doctor comes in the door and says Ruby is ready to be seen. That she’s going to be fine. 

Beside him, Beth shifts and reaches down for her purse. Stan ignores the shuffling until she pops back up and waggles her phone in front of his face. 

“So I did something,” she says, and Stan raises an eyebrow. 

“You sure as hell did. What this time?” He asks, fully prepared to hear her say that she has a plan for this medical bill about to fall on him and Ruby. He fights down the tide of anger that starts to roil within him again and watches her unlock the phone and click on her photos. 

Head bent over the screen, Beth’s finger drags slowly through the pictures. “I went through all my old pictures from high school and college and took pictures of them with my phone. I found a lot of you guys.” 

She looks at him and grins. “You have no idea how cute you guys were,” she laughs, “and what a huge dork you were.” 

Stan scoffs, “I was on the football team—.” 

“Yeah, for a semester.” 

“I was on the wrestling team,” Stan rolls on, uncrossing his arms to count on his fingers. 

Beth interrupts, still grinning, “For another semester.”   
  
“Uh, uh debate club.” 

“Nerd!” She replies, and holds her phone out for him to take. 

“Start at the one on the right,” she points. “Remember that? You stuttered your way through your turn and we thought we were going to lose. For the first time in two years, some new kid was about to be the reason we break our perfect streak.” 

It’s him, sweat glistening on his shiny head. He’s got that high top fade that he’d damn near bankrupted himself to pay for at the barbershop, and it comes back. Ruby barreling up to the podium when his turn ended, and breaking the other team in half. 

“Yeah, I thought Ruby was gonna explode,” he says, taps another photo from the same day, after Ruby’s won them second place. Ruby is smiling, blindingly bright, as Beth tucks their trophy into Ruby’s hands. It’s just possible to make him out, looking at Ruby as though she’s the only one in the room. 

He flicks away from it, a little too strong, and suddenly Beth and Ruby are grinning at each other, slipping matching corsages over each other’s wrists. Stan snorts, zooms in on the photo. “You made that, right?” 

Beth hmms and nods beside him. She tilts her head to look at the picture. “Before Dean, before you,” she chuckles again, “swept her off her feet. Our first homecoming and we didn’t have dates. But that didn’t stop us. We looked good.” 

Stan lingers on the picture. Their first homecoming dance would’ve been a whole year before he’d even been able to talk to Ruby without stuttering. “How long had you known Ruby then?” 

“I guess three years, maybe four,” Beth leans back in her seat and sighs. 

“Long time,” Stan muses and scrolls through the next batch of photos, stopping on a few. The two of them, Ruby and himself, at high school graduation. Ruby and Beth, and a pregnant Annie. Beth with a diamond on her finger, a small tight smile on her face, her arms looped around Ruby’s shoulders. 

“For a long time, you and I were weird, huh.” It’s a question, and it isn’t. Beth slides to face him in her chair, hands squeezed between her knees. 

She stares at him, silent, for a long moment before answering. “My family was her and Annie. You were...,” she trails away and then suddenly straightens and juts her chin at him. 

“Until you married her, I didn’t care what you said or how good of a guy you seemed to be.” After a charged moment, she blinks and looks away, and both of Stan’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. 

“Ok. Well since we seem to be telling each other the truth today. You never see that she will do anything for you. Girl would probably jump in front of a bullet even now she knows how bad it feels to be shot, if it meant saving your ass.” 

“You think I don’t know? Of course I do. But she's not a child Stan. I can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.” 

“Is that what I’m saying?” Stan rears back, hand to his chest, looks around the room. “Pretty sure I said that she’d take a bullet for you. Which in my mind means you need to make sure it never comes to that. Because as much as I love her, and I know she loves me and those two kids we brought into the world, I know she loves you more. She’d die for you.” 

Beth looks a back at him, all the color drained from her already pale face. “You’re upset.” 

“You got that right,” Stan interjects. He shuts his mouth around the jumbled words tumbling inside of him. He doesn’t want to say more than he has. 

Beth presses her fingers through her hair. “I’m upset too Stan. I don’t want Ruby to die or get shot or be hurt. I don’t want that for anyone! She’s my family. If she’s not okay, and it’s my fault—.” Beth stands up and snatches the phone from his hand. “If this is all I have of her—.” She stops again, waves the phone in her hand, the screen showing another photo. Sara, maybe a day or two old, is swaddled into the baby blanket she still keeps over her bed. The one Beth made. The grin on Beth’s face is so wide it looks like it might crack her cheeks. 

He remembers, looking at Sara, something Ruby had said. All of the money they’d made, was spent on Sara. Beth and Annie hadn’t taken any of it for themselves, for their bills, for their kids. Stan deflates a little, the anger draining from him until all that remains is a tightness in his chest, a burning in his eyes, and an exhaustion that makes it hard to even scrub his fingers over his eyes. 

“You three are cray. Nah, I’m gonna put the z back in there. C r a z y. Just a trip. I can’t with you,” he laughs through the tightness in his throat and looks up at her. The phone has fallen to her side. 

“Bring that here so I can delete all my nerdy ones please. Don’t nobody need to have evidence like that on me.” Stan waves one hand toward the phone, tries to pretend that his arm doesn’t feel like it weighs a ton, that he isn’t still afraid. 

Beth laughs, the sound choked with tears, and tosses him her phone. She flops into the chair again, eyes pressed shut behind her fingers. There’s nothing more to be said. She knows, he knows. All that’s left is getting to the other side and making do with what they’ve got.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and the next) are my fill for #48 of the GG Prompt-a-Thon.


	3. Postlude

As far as he was concerned, Ruby was the best thing about Detroit. The weather sucked, the new duplex everyone was stuffed into sucked, the fact that he couldn’t even stay on the bench for football sucked too. Ruby though, she was pretty and sweet and funny, even if the only who was allowed to hear her jokes was Beth Boland. He’d gotten the feeling, from the number of times Beth had brought herself, Ruby and the rest of the girls on student council and debate club to sit near him at lunch, that Beth knew. 

The problem was that Ruby didn’t seem to know he existed. Today was no different. Beth came through, Ruby just to the side of her with a book pinched between her hand and the lunch tray she carried. Stan dropped his head, squinted trying to read the cover. There was a P, but that was all he could see off it. It could have been anything. 

“Hey Stan.” 

Beth dropped her tray onto the table in front of him and climbed over the bench. Stan stared at her and nearly jumped up in shock when Ruby sat down beside her. She leaned over table a little turned away from them both. 

“So how are you liking debate club so far?” Beth asked, one hand pulling the tab on a coke and the other swirling the inside of her taco salad into a mess of red and green. 

“What are you, some kind of welcoming committee?” 

Stan ducked his head, grinning. He was close enough to hear her now. 

He looked up, mouth open to answer, and stopped, wincing. 

“Bethie!” 

It was Boland. He’d seen him hanging around a couple of times. Most recently when the coach had told him to try wrestling instead of football next year. That had sucked, and it had sucked even worse that it was Boland, of all people, who heard it. The dude wasn’t exactly good at keeping secrets. 

All of their Algebra 2 class knew that Boland wanted to ask a sophomore to prom. Every time he’d come around, there’s been a crowd, too big and too loud for Boland to get a word in. Today though, it was just him and Ruby. 

“Hey Dean,” Beth turned a smile up at him. “Have you met Stan yet?” 

“Uh yeah. Hey man,” Boland gazed at him for a moment before dropping onto the bench. Beth and Ruby jumped as the seat rattled, and Ruby, who’d just pulled her glasses off, squeaked, as her glasses flew out of her hand, through the air, and dropped straight onto the mush of meatloaf and mashed potatoes he’d been pretending to eat. 

“Ooh that’s gross,” Boland commented. 

“No duh Dean,” Ruby snapped. She reached a hand toward the glasses, cringing. 

Stan waved her hand away, stomach jumping when their fingers brushed. “I got this. You give me two minutes and these are gonna be right, okay?” 

Ruby looked at him, “You don’t have to clean my glasses. It wasn’t even your fault.” She rolled her eyes toward Dean, sighing. Stan smiled that and plucked the glasses off the mess of meat and potatoes on his plate. 

“Yeah, well,” Stan replied, stretching out to grab a napkin from the end of the table, “Gotta be the knight in shining armor somehow. You got everything else taken care of.” 

Ruby squinted at him. “I don’t know what that means.” 

Sweat broke out, itching and cold along the back of his neck. “I mean, you’ve got, you’re like, you know.” 

Ruby shook her head, still squinting. “I’m pretty sure I don’t. Just said that.” 

Stan stammered, mind swirling. “You’re pretty!” He blurted out, fingers tight around the frame of her glasses until the plastic bit into the palm of his hand. She stared at him, mouth slowly falling open. 

“And smart. And should be the debate team captain,” he blurted, and then raised a hand to smack himself in the forehead. Sharp plastic jammed at him, right between his eyebrows and he dropped the glasses, right back into the cold mess of food on his plate. 

Silence fell over the table. Then Ruby tilted her head back and laughed, tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. Stan watched her, one hand rubbing at his forehead. When she quieted, still chuckling, Stan grinned at her.

Ruby smiled back, a little wickedly. “We’ll work on that knight in shining armor bit.”


End file.
